March 7, 2024 • 44 mins
Vanessa Walters was born and raised in London and has a background in international journalism and playwriting and is a Tin House resident and a Millay Colony resident. She is the author of two previous YA books and The Nigerwife. She currently lives in Brooklyn.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to theWriter's Class. Yes, I actually remember
the name of my own podcast,although I want to say and I thought,
which would be cooler because it hasn'thad one come out in a while.
But I'm going with writers Class.I feel like this should go on
writers class because every writer asks methese questions. I'm about to ask this
person. But you guys don't reallycare about me. Chit chatting. Oh
(00:23):
wait, wait wait, I lied. You're going to have to care for
about another two minutes because I haveto talk about me. By the way,
can you see that my hair grewso I'm much prettier now. I'm
sorry. Now that I'm done talkingabout me almost for two minutes, I
feel like i feel much better aboutme. I feel like I'm ready to
(00:44):
do the show now, because youknow, as a narcissist me first speak.
All right, anyway, I wrotebooks and my name is will Noona,
and I remember to introduce myself.That's fine to me. Semi professionalism,
which is kind of sad because theperson I have on today is actually
professional. So my bad. Youshowed up on a semi unprofessional show.
What can I tell you? Theemail seemed professional though I wrote books,
(01:10):
and I've wrote them with help,so there's also normally a Jade either on
either side of me. But she'sfeeling sick today, so no Jackie,
which means I am free to keepon dancing dancing. And you didn't want
to hear that singing either. That'sall right, because still me did.
The books are and I thought divorcewas bad, and I thought being grown
up with zz only are Me amemoir on Bird's Foreign Coffee, Widdow's Web,
(01:32):
and Widdle's Debt. Those are sixbooks. The audiobooks wherever you find
your audio books, and you canfind the rest of our books, which
are literally life guides with pop poetry. By the way, if Jade was
here right now, she'd be like, you go girl, you remembered,
And yes, I'm not old touse a statement, you go girl,
because I feel like it's still validif I'm saying it, it's a valid
statement. And a minute, I'llraise the roof because I'm gonna take it
(01:53):
all the way back to like thenineties or something. Anyway, you can
find the rest of our books atwww. Dot And I thought Ladies azut
car and that's another Oh wow,there's six, and then there's fifteen more.
Now we have done twenty one booksin total. We finished We just
finished twenty two and I'm working onnumber twenty three. I'm starting to feel
(02:16):
like I'm old and I write toomuch. I need to do other things
in life. No, but you'renot here to hear about me. You're
here to hear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guess would you like to introduce
yourself? Hey, WANALDA will owner. Sorry, I'm Vanessa, Vanessa Walters.
I'm the author of The Niger Wife, which is has actually been retitled,
(02:43):
which we can talk about as Theleg Us Wife and The Niger Wife
came out in May twenty twenty three. I'm originally from the UK, as
you can probably hear, but Ilive in New York. I've lived in
New York for a number of yearsin Brooklyn and what else? Yeah,
(03:07):
I am. I'm working on mysecond novel, my second adult novel.
I've previously written ya, and Ithink I think that's enough of a bio
for now. I feel like youlike, there's never like too much,
Well, no, there's too muchbio if it's really boring, things like
(03:28):
I typed like ninety eight words perminute and uh with eighty two percent accuracy.
That that's when you've done too muchbio. So it has been reading
it. Okay, first of all, this is your debut adult novel.
What made you want to write this? Well, I've a I've always written.
I'm one of those people. Isounds like you guys are as well,
(03:53):
who just who just felt compelled towrite. So I've always written from
a young age. And and alsoI think, like when I look back,
places really inspire me because it's oftenwhen I had moved to a place
or I'm interacting with a place forthe first time that I decided to write
(04:14):
something about it. So in myfirst Ya book, I had just moved
to an area of London, andI would think I was totally fascinated by
that area. I think I'd movedfrom more of a white area to more
of a Caribbean area. My heritageis Caribbean, and that was amazing.
(04:34):
And I wrote about three girls wholived in that area and all the stuff
that they got up to over onesummer. And then a third project I
did, which was a short bookabout black experience in London, was based
on an area where which I hadbeen commissioned to write about from a historical
(04:59):
person because that area had a lotof black history, and that really inspired
me as well, the way theenvironment had really shaped black consciousness in that
area. And that book was calledSmoke Othello because every time someone in the
(05:20):
sort of Elizabethan times would see ablack person, they would say smoke,
so because Othella was a term ofreference they had for black people. So
that was the title of that Andthen about how long ago? Now,
(05:43):
gosh, time really flies, Soover ten years ago I moved to Labos
and I was in Lagos, Nigeriafor seven years, and that was a
super fascinating time, so of courseI wrote about it. I wrote about
the experience of being black in Africa, you know, sort of assuming that
(06:03):
you're just going to fit in,but then realizing you actually don't because culturally,
you know, it's very different andit's very diverse culturally, and that
also means that people there see eachother very differently to how we see each
other when we are living in theWest. And so I wrote about all
(06:28):
that in the context of a womanwho marries a Nigerian and then she suddenly
disappears, and it's all about whatled up to that disappearance. So so
yeah, I wrote that because Iwas I wanted to explore, like all
these questions I had about being,in my case, a black British woman
(06:50):
in Nigeria and having to make alife there. How did you how did
you get used to to the culturaldifferences, because I mean, it seems
like you've already done a cultural differencefrom going to the from the white side
to the Caribbean and from the Caribbeannow to the African culture. Did any
(07:15):
of it manage? She didn'ty ofit work out? Was it just harder
to accept or did you find yourselfto be flexible? I think I'm an
incredibly flexible person. I think that'swhat moving a lot has done for me.
I've lived at this point. I'velived in five cities on four continents.
I've lived in Indonesia, I've livedin France, I've lived in Nigeria,
(07:39):
and I've lived in London obviously whereI was raised. And I've lived
in New York now for five years. So I think adaptability is essential to
survive in a different place. AndI think what you get from living in
vastly different cultures is a sense ofperspective. We often have like a default
(08:03):
that our culture is the best.And I think living in so many places
has just showed me that, youknow, culture is a culture is much
of a muchness. It's whatever youattach importance to, and people attach importance
to different things, and I thinkjust understanding that helps to not take it
(08:26):
so personally when you don't fit in. It's just understanding that someone's culture is
not right and your culture is notwrong. Your culture is just the things
people who I suppose are from youryour community have attached meaning to and you
can attach meaning to other things,you know, so you can give something
(08:50):
up if you need to fit intoa place without it having to be such
a such a big deal so tospeak. So how has okay? So
as writers it's often said that wellfor us as poets, where they say
we're the conscience of society, Butlike as writers, I find that we
(09:11):
tend to observe and then create ina way that it emphasizes what we see
right and wrong, what we seeas intricacies in society that do or don't
work. So for you being introducedto so many cultures, how do you
put this into your writing in away that it connects with the readers globally?
(09:37):
I that's a good question. Ithink that I just have a lot
of questions. I feel like Ihave a lot of questions that my readers
would have, or that anybody wouldhave. So in my novel, my
(09:58):
character Nicole is desperate to leave hermarriage. So the questions she has are
what The question the reader has,I suppose more than Nicole is what is
marriage in this place? Like weneed to understand why it's important, what
would it mean, what would bethe stakes for someone leaving a marriage or
(10:22):
even staying in a marriage? Andso I think just that way of exploring
these questions is actually just very human, and people have been able to relate
to Nicole from all over the world. I've had women in India tell me
(10:43):
that they can relate to the nigerWives, who are this community of foreign
women married to Nigerian men who livein Nigeria. They're called niger Wives in
Nigeria, and people have said there'ssimilar community is you know wherever they're from,
where women are dealing with the sameissues. I think essentially in life,
(11:05):
even though we have different cultures.We are dealing with issues of belonging.
We're dealing with issues of life purposeand feeling validated in our communities.
So we're all wrestling with that.That's the commonality. I think that you
(11:26):
can feel no matter where you're fromor what your culture is. Yeah,
okay, so as a kid whogot picked on, I definitely understand that.
I think of belonging like I needto belong. And that's that's everywhere
you go. I mean, evenif you just travel someplace you kind of
(11:46):
want, you're kind of aware oftheir culture because you just want to fit
in. You just don't want tobe that sore person out. And so
this white I mean, this isnot his why this book The Niger Wife
definitely speaks to the human condition,and that's what raters do. So I'm
told, good gracious, I havebeen so serious this entire time with these
questions. I feel like I'm noteven being the true me. So let's
(12:09):
add something semi silly. That's food, New York London. Okay, Yeah,
I need to know best food inLondon because I'm still confused about best
food in London. It's only beena well, no, that's not true.
Had a really expensive meal the lastsummer was there, and then I
found some really great fast food thatwas like ninety some pence for like a
sandwich. So like between these two, that's the best food I've ever had
(12:31):
in London. And then legos,what do we eat? So first of
all, I'll just say in London, the best thing about London British food
is that don't look at it interms of like, you know, the
White English, because if you lookat it in terms of them, I
(12:52):
think you're gonna be kind of disappointed. But the British Empire, you know,
spanned you know, however, manycountries on the globe, including America
at one time, and London ina sense is like that kind of focal
(13:15):
point for the Empire. So youhave Indians in London, you have Caribbean
people in London, you have Africanpeople in London, et cetera, Chinese
people in London. So that iswhat I think of it as the good
thing about the food in London.It's like a center of excellence for all
these different cultures. And so youcan you can travel across the Empire food
(13:37):
wise and enjoy great food. Butif you just stick to like if you're
looking for like white British food,you're probably going to be disappointed because their
food is like notoriously bland. Youknow, one thing they do good is
(13:58):
like scones, like cakes. Youknow, I love my cakes, my
scones. Yeah, little little pies, little nice little desserts. But in
general, no, you have tonot think of food in London that way.
You have to look for the bestCaribbean restaurant. You have to look
(14:20):
for the best Indian restaurant, thebest Nigerian restaurant, the best Turkish restaurant,
the best Greek restaurant. And that'sthe way you're gonna eat very well
in London. Now, I playwith my Greek food, but I like
my Greek food in Greeks, Sodon't because I'm heading to London in a
couple of weeks. So it's goodGreek food in London, I'm gonna go
(14:43):
find it. Yeah, yeah,you're fine, really great, good,
great Greek food in London. AndNigerian what do Nigerian people? They love
stew. It's like this wonderful tomatostew. It's hot and spicy and you
can have anything in it, likeyou can have chicken, in it.
That's very popular. You can havebeef that's also popular. You can have
(15:05):
fish, but it's the same spicytomato stew and then you have that with
rice. You can also have agoosy which is another type of stew,
and that's made with melon seeds andusually you have it's very like nice salty.
(15:33):
You'd have that with like a crayfishflavoring, and then you usually have
it with some type of seafood.But again you can put anything into that
agosy stew and then your your starchwill be like ever, it's a type
of pounded yam or pounded cassava.So you you'd have that as your side.
(15:58):
What the Ganan's called fu food whichis like a more popular name for
it. So that's called swallow andso you'd have your stew and you'd have
your swallow on the side. Theyalso do an amazing oh cross stew O
cross soup. Oh it's delicious.Now, I Nigerians do okraw better than
(16:21):
anyone else because I love their Okasoup. It's one of my favorite dishes.
So I liked it. Okay.So I live in d C.
Yeah, I don't live ind Ilive outside of d C. But I
go to d C to have lovelydifferent foods from like different places in Africa.
I have had the Nigerians with nDC. I don't know what it's
(16:44):
like. I barely enjoyed it aslong as I pluck the ok route.
Okay, well, I could seethat. I could see that, and
I I I get it. Imean it's os I get I get it.
And I'm assuming you've had jeelo rice? Then, which is the other
(17:06):
star of West African food is jelof rice? And being able to have
like you know, you've qualified tolike boss level jeelo rice. When you
can now argue with West Africans aboutwho has the best jeel of rice.
So if you have, if it'sGana's joel of rice, if it's Senegal's
(17:27):
jel of rice, if it's Nigerian'sjel of right, my personal favorite is
Ghana's jeel of rice. They allhave subtle differences. I've only had sin
of goal. Okay, well,I think Senegal's jeelo of rice is supposed
to be like right up there,Okay, So I don't have to go
(17:49):
try the other jewel rice. Ihave to go hunted down. I just
wanted Okay. So one of myfriends told me that because I love Ethiopian
food, and they're like, well, you have to have this Nigerian oprah
soup. They did not tell methe name of it. They said it
was opra soup and I was like, ill, okra, but what the
heck, let's go, I'll tryit. And I was like, well,
(18:11):
this is good minus the opra,So like that's the only reason.
Again, somewhere else. Try itagain, somewhere else, because I know
what you mean. And I thinkit could be down to the way they
cook the okra or the way theycut the okra, because I think some
(18:32):
people don't have like big pieces ofokra in the soup, so that could
be another type. You might gookra huh they had larger pieces of okra.
Yeah, so I think that wouldn'tbe so nice to have larger pieces
of okra. Maybe that's what itwas. Yeah, I shouldn't have gone
to a place that it was afirst food restaurant. That might have been
(18:57):
it. Okay, I'm sorry,Oh, I just love talking about food.
I'm sorry. Best food in NewYork, Oh, best food in
New York. I love. Ilove the Caribbean food in New York.
It's it's so good, and Imissed that while I was in Nigeria a
lot because the pretty much the onlyCaribbean food I had was the food I
(19:21):
cooked. So it's nice to bein a place where I can go out
and enjoy lovely, you know,Caribbean food. So I think that's one
of my favorites here. What elsedo I like here? I like them,
hm, Solt food obviously, Ilove soalt food. So I've been
(19:48):
enjoying Solt food being here, andevery now and then I will have a
craving for like candy jams, becauseI never it's such a uniquely American can
experience candy yams. So I loveour candy at this point house. It's
(20:11):
a sugar craving as well. I'vekind of like I've had prepared in other
ways where in other countries where itwas just like, uh, just yams
kind of mashed up and you mightadd a little creaminess to it, and
that was just it and it wasdelicious, and I was like, you
don't have to put sugar on.I didn't recognize candy yams. It's literally
(20:36):
candy out of candy. Yeah,yeah, amazing it's it is. It's
amazing though It's true, it's soindulgent and I love it. Also,
the mac and cheese, Like,the best mac and cheese is definitely here
in America. I've never had andlike I love, lot of Americans don't
(21:02):
do it great. The bar canbe kind of low for mac and cheese,
but the best mac and cheese hasdefinitely been hit in America. Like,
there're people here who really know howto do mac and cheese. So
you're making me want mac and cheesenow, I am thinking. I'm sitting
(21:23):
here thinking about ordering it and havinga door dash to my house because fortunately
I don't live too far from Ilive far, but the drivers don't mind
the tip when they drive here.I'm gonna definitely make me an order of
real soul food. I haven't donethat in a minute. By the way,
my favorite New York food is bagels. Oh yes, nothing like a
(21:47):
New York bagel. And yeah,I haven't been elsewhere in America and like
had bagels to compare, but definitelyyou want a bagel. New York is
the place it is. It isdefinitely these please, I'm gonna say something
in most New Yorkers don't going like, but if you have pizza in New
York, you still have pizza inChicago. Yeah, I'm with you.
I think I like the fact thatNew York pizza has a slightly different taste
(22:12):
to it. But it's not it'snot my it's it's not my hill to
die on pizza. I've had betterpizza elsewhere. I'm still not sure about.
Yeah, like New York, Imean, pizza pizza is like mac
(22:33):
and cheese, like so many peoplemake pizza that for some people, like
the bar's kind of gotten low forpizza, but there are you can get
amazing pizza in New York. ButI don't really feel like I really have
had that amazing pizza yet. I'mstill I'm still exploring the pizza pizza landscape.
(23:00):
It's just great. I love that. That's what I'm gonna call it.
From now on. People gonna belike, well, you're such a
They do call me a pizza snob, But I don't feel like I'm a
pizza snob because I'm not like eatingamazingly like high up there pizza. I
just I'm very particular about the pizza. But I'm gonna be like, no,
I'm traversing the pizza landscape exactly cantake a lifetime. It can take
(23:23):
so long. So let's just nota pizza snob on a pizza journey.
Okay, Okay, there's been somuch time talking about food, which I
have thoroughly and fully enjoyed, Andnow I am hungry because I skipped breakfast.
Oh, should never do That's themost important meal of the day.
Well, I mean, I guessif you count the four am pizza coconut
(23:45):
cake. Wow, we should countpizza coconut cake. But I was hungry
and it was four in the morning. Sure wasn't gonna cook. Anyway,
Let's get it to you in yourbook. Okay. First of all,
you've had two amazing things happen.One, you apparently get a literary Asian
(24:07):
and get a published amazing and thentwo, well we'll wait for two.
Let's talk about how did you meetyour literary agent. Well, I was
in New York with no contacts,barely any friends, and I really wrote
a lot of my novel through thatpandemic loneliness. So when it was twenty
(24:30):
twenty, I finished my novel intwenty twenty or was it twenty I think
I finished in twenty twenty one,just what I told it a year.
No, I spent six years workingon the novel. I think, I
really you know, pushed gear changedgears during the pandemic. And so,
(24:51):
for example, I woke up atfive am for a year during the pandemic
on purpose. Yeah, because becausemy I have two kids, and my
kids were at home with me formuch of the pandemic, and as soon
as they were awake I could,I would find it very difficult to concentrate
on my writing. So I hadto wake up before they woke up and
(25:12):
write for a few hours. Butthat kind of changed my whole writing ethic
and discipline. So I made realprogress during that that time. So I
finished at the end of twenty twentyone, and just like Christmas time,
I finished, and so I said, okay, January, I'm going to
(25:37):
start agenting in earnest. I'm goingto write my query letters and I'm going
to have my spreadsheet of like,you know, two hundred agents who I'm
gonna query, because that is thenatural path of querying. You make a
spreadsheet, you have like two hundredagents on it, and you send out
(26:00):
your letters to each one, likepersonalized letters, and you wait six weeks
and hope they request your full manuscriptin that time, and you hope someone
bites. And often this can takelike a year to do to get through.
But what happened is I think twoweeks into January, I was on
(26:23):
Twitter and I saw there was anagent on Twitter who was asking for a
book that was kind of like mybook in a way. It was set
in Legos, Nigeria, and itwas like a bit of a who Done
It And it was called My Sisterthe Serial Killer, which was like a
(26:45):
hugely popular book. And so thisagent was on Twitter saying, hey,
guys, my inbox is open andI'd really like books like these, and
she mentioned My Sister the Serial Killer. So I was like, yes,
that's that is me. So Iqueried her immediately because obviously my letters were
(27:10):
ready to go, my manuscript wasready to go. So I queried her
immediately, and she wrote back tome, funnily enough, the same day
and said, hey, I wouldlike to see your manuscript. So my
manuscript was ready to go. SoI sent my manuscript to her straight away
the same day, and the nextday she made me an offer to represent
(27:30):
me and that is really like unusual. It's it's kind of magical, and
I took it for a magical momentand I took it for a sign that
this was my agent. She alsowas from, you know, a top
ten agency in the US, andso I really was like, this is
(27:56):
amazing and I and she is amazing. She you know, she changed my
life. So I ended up goingwith her and then we worked on the
novel a little bit and she soldit pretty much within a month. So
I'd gone from like six weeks youhave to wait just to get a manuscript
(28:18):
request from an agent to pretty muchselling my novel in six weeks to Simon
and Schuster. So it really wasincredible and incredible, incredibly fast and magical
journey. How what was the bookor wait, you did it during the
(28:41):
COVID year, so the book toursprobably wasn't wasn't as big as it could
be. So did you go onany book tours or did you do a
blog tour? I didn't go onany book tours. You know, I
was pretty much you know, publishinghas changed a lot, and although or
do book tours, I think publishersare not too hot on book talks.
(29:04):
So the publisher was kind of like, we don't care about book tours.
You should. You should write yoursecond book, right, don't even worry
about a book talk, just writeyour second book. And I don't know
if that was really good advice becauseI'm doing things a little bit more differently
(29:30):
now my book is coming out inthe UK. I'm going to visit booksellers.
I'm going around the country and I'mdoing like little events. And I
think the journey is not just aboutit's not just about like what's good for
the publisher or like you know,it's not even just about selling books.
(29:51):
It's also about enjoying your life.It's having the conversations you want to have
about your book, and it's seeingbook out there in a way that works
for who you are. And Ireally like meeting booksellers. I really like
talking to people about my book.And and I think if you don't do
(30:12):
any book tours, you're missing outas as a writer having that experience of
engaging with the readers, because readingreviews is not fun. There is something
to be said about engaging with thereaders, engaging with the public in general.
(30:33):
Like we were on tour for twentysix weeks out of the year for
about three years. Wow, itmight have been four. Oh. We
stopped touring during the COVID years andwe haven't got back to that schedule since.
Let me just say, the travelcars is a loutlet. Well yeah,
but it is an absolute blast andthen you get to meet new people
(30:56):
and introduced, you get them trustedin your book, and then you have
a whole new set of fans andit's just amazing. Yeah, it's a
wonderful experience. And so I'm tryingto do more of that now. And
I didn't do didn't really get intothat. They do a lot of stuff
(31:18):
online, which I think, againis not much fun for a writer because
it means you have to be onlineto engage with it, and that is
very time consuming and distracting and notas satisfying as actually meeting real people.
(31:40):
So I mean, this is adifferent sort of online engagement. But like,
just like engaging through blogs and likemessaging is not as satisfying as like
having a real conversation and seeing peoplein whether it's like this or in real
life. You know, I thinkthat makes a big difference. So I'm
(32:02):
all for touring, you know,I think it's a good thing for the
for the writer, and let's let'snot forget it also feeds your creativity.
It does, it really really does, and I can't explain it, but
(32:22):
I think in the ways you mentioned, and also I think helps you to
sort of understand what's what you bringto the table in terms of your work.
You know what people because you canyou can think about what's good about
(32:44):
your work, but sometimes it's notthe thing that you think it is.
So being out there with readers reallyis interesting and and prompting those creative questions
that you then bring to the pageexactly. And then I'm gonna say from
(33:06):
because I am the narcissist, soI'm going to talk on this from my
perspective. One of the things that'sreally great about the creativity is meeting different
people, different personalities, and beingin different cities. Still narcissist moment.
One of our biggest one of ourbiggest areas for fans is the Midwest.
So we're in places like Nebraska,Wyoming, the Dakota's. Yeah, no
(33:27):
one's really out there, but meetingnew people and seeing new places and being
to like write about those places becausenow you know those places you know what
restaurant, you're like, you knowwhat the street names are, you've driven.
It opens up a whole new worldto write about. It does.
And online girlies, I'm going totalk about girlies, but the online girlies
(33:51):
and in real life girlies are verydifferent. The online giralies tend to be
kind of more sort of millennial orgen z ish, and and they do
tend to connect with books a differentway because they're building platforms and they want
the cool book that everybody's talking about. And a lot of the people who
(34:16):
you meet in real life you wouldnever see online and you and honestly,
I think they they are not Theydon't have to impress anything. There's no
sort of clout involved with the bookthat they read. They're never going to
post a review on Goodreads. Butthey really love your book in the quocket
(34:43):
spaces of their life in a waythat can be very moving. And so
to interact with that I think isvery important, very very important. And
as to mention, that's where youfind out how it has changed someone's life.
YEA, who they wish they couldhave or what they want to know
(35:06):
in the next book, And thatreally does help increase your online presence because
you are giving your core person whowanted to get up, leave the house,
drive to where you are sit there, wait in line to talk to
you. Yeah, yeah, totell you what they thought. Yeah,
you're giving that person what they want. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's huge.
(35:34):
It is all right, I'm sorrylast question, SIMI to the last
question, which is which everyone wantsto know, how did your book get
options and tackle talent? So againthat was partly due to my agent,
And I would say that in thisday and age where IP is becoming so
(35:55):
lucrative, advance are falling, advancesare falling, and book sales are kind
of because book sales are kind offalling, right, so, but IP
sales are going up. And that'spartly because with streaming, these television companies
(36:19):
they need content, right, They'realways looking for content. And the days
when they used to like have awriting room of ten, like Brainstorm a
television show down to the bone soit can run for ten seasons, those
days are gone, right. Theydon't have they don't want to invest in
(36:40):
that. They just want something theycan put out there. So they look
for the books because we the writershave put that energy that interrogation of character
into our stories already, so allthey have to do is adapt the story
and they don't need ten writers todo that. They need one or maybe
(37:01):
three maximum writers to do that,and that costs less than a ten person
writing room. So if you wantto get optioned, the best way is
to get an agent who has connectionsin TV and film or in LA or
(37:22):
works with TV and film agents.And these are questions you need to ask
your agent upfront if that's what youwant, because if you don't have those
connections yourself and your agent doesn't havethose connections, then it's going to be
it's going to be much trickier forthose those things to happen. They might
(37:44):
happen. For example, if yourbook sells really well, like it's a
best seller, then maybe the TVcompanies will come to find you. But
my book sold before I even hada book deal, or my book was
on the way, it was outthere circulating in Hollywood before I had a
book deal, So it didn't selloff sales, and it didn't sell off
(38:07):
the hype of having a book dealthat was much anticipated. It's sold because
my agent knew people in TV andfilm who were looking for IP and sent
it to those people, and thatwas like a long a kind of a
longish process of like about a monthof the book circulating, and then now
(38:29):
people started coming to the table tobid for it. So that's all the
agent. That's what you now haveto start looking at as writers is asking
yourself, does my agent have thecapacity to deliver ip right? If your
agent does say that they have thepersonal connections, that's great. If they
(38:51):
don't and they give them some subagents, you need to know the connections that
the subagent has. You want tomake sure that the subagent is not brand
new, Yeah, for sure.And you still need luck, but these
are the ways you can kind ofcontrol your luck. Yeah, definitely.
Of course. You know there's theway that I try to do it,
which is just go meet the production. I mean, whatever works, And
(39:15):
you have that personality. A lotof writers don't. So it's also like
what can knowing yourself and what youneed for these things to happen, you
know what I mean? Exactly?Writers know people in TV and media and
(39:36):
also if you've been in a community, if you're very embedded in your community,
you will know people across the spectrumin your community. So there's different
ways to get things done exactly.It has been an absolute pleasure talking to
you. What is next for you? What is coming up for you that
we need to go to. Obviouslyit's a UK booktor May I mention a
(40:00):
UK book tour is so fun.Yeah plains, I mean, but you
know this. Never mind you livedin London, Yeah, never mind.
I want to know about your UKtours, multiple tours. I've been doing
a UK tour since my book cameout in October, and I ended up
on a UK tour by December ofthe next December of that year. Amazing.
(40:22):
So you call those little bookshops,those cute little bookshops do PR tours,
Okay, so it's a radio televisionokay, magazine interviews, I do
PR tours, Okay. I wantto do bookshops and stuff like I got
the libraries and and a couple ofplaces that was fun. But yeah,
(40:47):
I'm going to do this one day. I'm going to be like, I
am doing a book tour, likea real book tour, not a PR
tour because I like being on camera. Okay, what do what makes you
happy? I think that's the seeof the tour is you can do the
things that you like to do,right, that's what's great about it.
I think the closest we get toa real book to wealth. There's one
(41:09):
in northern England and then there's onein Greece. So like we just like
we knew the owner of the hotel, and the hotel owner likes our books,
and we come up with a newbook. We come up to new
two notebooks every year for a while. And so when we went to the
hotel, they would get together peoplewho liked book into we're English speaking,
and we read to them and theytold us about like it was like a
(41:30):
huge book club pretty much. I'mjust being and I mean it was a
great reason to go to Greece Greekisle. We got to go to a
Greek isle to read our book.Yeah, that's a win win, Like
okay, if you if you areput twist my arm, No, twist
my arm, I'm going, I'mgoing. I'll be there. I love
(41:53):
it. I really love the soundof that. And I want to think
of that now for my next booktour. How can I get to Greece
or somewhere equally picturesque and have thatas part of my of my tour,
Like that's amazing. It was sofun. I was like, I'm so
glad you're like us, but you'regoing to do it. You have an
(42:15):
agent, don't worry about it anyway. What's next for you? What's next?
Just writing? I mean, I'mkind of scrambling to get time to
write right now. I have todeliver my second novel by June, so
I'm writing like a thousand words aday right now to kind of just make
(42:38):
that deadline. And you know,obviously I do my rewrites as well,
so that's kind of it. I'mpromoting the novel, but I'm also like
writing and there's not really time foranything else. So that's where I'm at.
That is amazing. I want tothank you so much for being here.
(42:59):
And I really should have asked aboutyour writing schedule. I really should
have, but my tummy is reallygrumbling. Now that we have talked about
mac and cheese and candy yams.Now we both meet to eight, I
think, so I'm gonna go aheadand wrap it up on our end.
I will Nona on one of theNDI I thought ladies. You can find
out everything about your ladies at wwwdot anti. I thought ladies dot com
(43:21):
and when you go down to themiddle of the page, not the bottom
of the page, but the middleof the page, you can see the
charities that we probably support. Iwant to remind everyone that our annual awards
gala that's also our charity donation gala, is coming up in May, so
could you buy a ticket so wecan do a better donation this year.
I mean, we had a nicedonation last year, but come on,
(43:42):
let's stop it. Like twice asmuch would be great, all right,
So we asked that you support thesecharities in any way that you would that
you can. It does not meanfinancially, which although I just asked you
to financially pitch in right, doesnot mean financially. You can give them
like some knowledge if you want toor whatever, but we think you in
advance for that. And remember thatwisdom it's all around you if you're a
bit defining it and accepting it.So peace in love you guys from Molona
(44:07):
and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to theWriter's Class. Yes, I actually remember
the name of my own podcast,although I want to say and I thought,
which would be cooler because it hasn'thad one come out in a while.
But I'm going with writers Class.I feel like this should go on
writers class because every writer asks methese questions. I'm about to ask this
person. But you guys don't reallycare about me. Chit chatting. Oh
(00:23):
wait, wait wait, I lied. You're going to have to care for
about another two minutes because I haveto talk about me. By the way,
can you see that my hair grewso I'm much prettier now. I'm
sorry. Now that I'm done talkingabout me almost for two minutes, I
feel like i feel much better aboutme. I feel like I'm ready to
(00:44):
do the show now, because youknow, as a narcissist me first speak.
All right, anyway, I wrotebooks and my name is will Noona,
and I remember to introduce myself.That's fine to me. Semi professionalism,
which is kind of sad because theperson I have on today is actually
professional. So my bad. Youshowed up on a semi unprofessional show.
What can I tell you? Theemail seemed professional though I wrote books,
(01:10):
and I've wrote them with help,so there's also normally a Jade either on
either side of me. But she'sfeeling sick today, so no Jackie,
which means I am free to keepon dancing dancing. And you didn't want
to hear that singing either. That'sall right, because still me did.
The books are and I thought divorcewas bad, and I thought being grown
up with zz only are Me amemoir on Bird's Foreign Coffee, Widdow's Web,
(01:32):
and Widdle's Debt. Those are sixbooks. The audiobooks wherever you find
your audio books, and you canfind the rest of our books, which
are literally life guides with pop poetry. By the way, if Jade was
here right now, she'd be like, you go girl, you remembered,
And yes, I'm not old touse a statement, you go girl,
because I feel like it's still validif I'm saying it, it's a valid
statement. And a minute, I'llraise the roof because I'm gonna take it
(01:53):
all the way back to like thenineties or something. Anyway, you can
find the rest of our books atwww. Dot And I thought Ladies azut
car and that's another Oh wow,there's six, and then there's fifteen more.
Now we have done twenty one booksin total. We finished We just
finished twenty two and I'm working onnumber twenty three. I'm starting to feel
(02:16):
like I'm old and I write toomuch. I need to do other things
in life. No, but you'renot here to hear about me. You're
here to hear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guess would you like to introduce
yourself? Hey, WANALDA will owner. Sorry, I'm Vanessa, Vanessa Walters.
I'm the author of The Niger Wife, which is has actually been retitled,
(02:43):
which we can talk about as Theleg Us Wife and The Niger Wife
came out in May twenty twenty three. I'm originally from the UK, as
you can probably hear, but Ilive in New York. I've lived in
New York for a number of yearsin Brooklyn and what else? Yeah,
(03:07):
I am. I'm working on mysecond novel, my second adult novel.
I've previously written ya, and Ithink I think that's enough of a bio
for now. I feel like youlike, there's never like too much,
Well, no, there's too muchbio if it's really boring, things like
(03:28):
I typed like ninety eight words perminute and uh with eighty two percent accuracy.
That that's when you've done too muchbio. So it has been reading
it. Okay, first of all, this is your debut adult novel.
What made you want to write this? Well, I've a I've always written.
I'm one of those people. Isounds like you guys are as well,
(03:53):
who just who just felt compelled towrite. So I've always written from
a young age. And and alsoI think, like when I look back,
places really inspire me because it's oftenwhen I had moved to a place
or I'm interacting with a place forthe first time that I decided to write
(04:14):
something about it. So in myfirst Ya book, I had just moved
to an area of London, andI would think I was totally fascinated by
that area. I think I'd movedfrom more of a white area to more
of a Caribbean area. My heritageis Caribbean, and that was amazing.
(04:34):
And I wrote about three girls wholived in that area and all the stuff
that they got up to over onesummer. And then a third project I
did, which was a short bookabout black experience in London, was based
on an area where which I hadbeen commissioned to write about from a historical
(04:59):
person because that area had a lotof black history, and that really inspired
me as well, the way theenvironment had really shaped black consciousness in that
area. And that book was calledSmoke Othello because every time someone in the
(05:20):
sort of Elizabethan times would see ablack person, they would say smoke,
so because Othella was a term ofreference they had for black people. So
that was the title of that Andthen about how long ago? Now,
(05:43):
gosh, time really flies, Soover ten years ago I moved to Labos
and I was in Lagos, Nigeriafor seven years, and that was a
super fascinating time, so of courseI wrote about it. I wrote about
the experience of being black in Africa, you know, sort of assuming that
(06:03):
you're just going to fit in,but then realizing you actually don't because culturally,
you know, it's very different andit's very diverse culturally, and that
also means that people there see eachother very differently to how we see each
other when we are living in theWest. And so I wrote about all
(06:28):
that in the context of a womanwho marries a Nigerian and then she suddenly
disappears, and it's all about whatled up to that disappearance. So so
yeah, I wrote that because Iwas I wanted to explore, like all
these questions I had about being,in my case, a black British woman
(06:50):
in Nigeria and having to make alife there. How did you how did
you get used to to the culturaldifferences, because I mean, it seems
like you've already done a cultural differencefrom going to the from the white side
to the Caribbean and from the Caribbeannow to the African culture. Did any
(07:15):
of it manage? She didn'ty ofit work out? Was it just harder
to accept or did you find yourselfto be flexible? I think I'm an
incredibly flexible person. I think that'swhat moving a lot has done for me.
I've lived at this point. I'velived in five cities on four continents.
I've lived in Indonesia, I've livedin France, I've lived in Nigeria,
(07:39):
and I've lived in London obviously whereI was raised. And I've lived
in New York now for five years. So I think adaptability is essential to
survive in a different place. AndI think what you get from living in
vastly different cultures is a sense ofperspective. We often have like a default
(08:03):
that our culture is the best.And I think living in so many places
has just showed me that, youknow, culture is a culture is much
of a muchness. It's whatever youattach importance to, and people attach importance
to different things, and I thinkjust understanding that helps to not take it
(08:26):
so personally when you don't fit in. It's just understanding that someone's culture is
not right and your culture is notwrong. Your culture is just the things
people who I suppose are from youryour community have attached meaning to and you
can attach meaning to other things,you know, so you can give something
(08:50):
up if you need to fit intoa place without it having to be such
a such a big deal so tospeak. So how has okay? So
as writers it's often said that wellfor us as poets, where they say
we're the conscience of society, Butlike as writers, I find that we
(09:11):
tend to observe and then create ina way that it emphasizes what we see
right and wrong, what we seeas intricacies in society that do or don't
work. So for you being introducedto so many cultures, how do you
put this into your writing in away that it connects with the readers globally?
(09:37):
I that's a good question. Ithink that I just have a lot
of questions. I feel like Ihave a lot of questions that my readers
would have, or that anybody wouldhave. So in my novel, my
(09:58):
character Nicole is desperate to leave hermarriage. So the questions she has are
what The question the reader has,I suppose more than Nicole is what is
marriage in this place? Like weneed to understand why it's important, what
would it mean, what would bethe stakes for someone leaving a marriage or
(10:22):
even staying in a marriage? Andso I think just that way of exploring
these questions is actually just very human, and people have been able to relate
to Nicole from all over the world. I've had women in India tell me
(10:43):
that they can relate to the nigerWives, who are this community of foreign
women married to Nigerian men who livein Nigeria. They're called niger Wives in
Nigeria, and people have said there'ssimilar community is you know wherever they're from,
where women are dealing with the sameissues. I think essentially in life,
(11:05):
even though we have different cultures.We are dealing with issues of belonging.
We're dealing with issues of life purposeand feeling validated in our communities.
So we're all wrestling with that.That's the commonality. I think that you
(11:26):
can feel no matter where you're fromor what your culture is. Yeah,
okay, so as a kid whogot picked on, I definitely understand that.
I think of belonging like I needto belong. And that's that's everywhere
you go. I mean, evenif you just travel someplace you kind of
(11:46):
want, you're kind of aware oftheir culture because you just want to fit
in. You just don't want tobe that sore person out. And so
this white I mean, this isnot his why this book The Niger Wife
definitely speaks to the human condition,and that's what raters do. So I'm
told, good gracious, I havebeen so serious this entire time with these
questions. I feel like I'm noteven being the true me. So let's
(12:09):
add something semi silly. That's food, New York London. Okay, Yeah,
I need to know best food inLondon because I'm still confused about best
food in London. It's only beena well, no, that's not true.
Had a really expensive meal the lastsummer was there, and then I
found some really great fast food thatwas like ninety some pence for like a
sandwich. So like between these two, that's the best food I've ever had
(12:31):
in London. And then legos,what do we eat? So first of
all, I'll just say in London, the best thing about London British food
is that don't look at it interms of like, you know, the
White English, because if you lookat it in terms of them, I
(12:52):
think you're gonna be kind of disappointed. But the British Empire, you know,
spanned you know, however, manycountries on the globe, including America
at one time, and London ina sense is like that kind of focal
(13:15):
point for the Empire. So youhave Indians in London, you have Caribbean
people in London, you have Africanpeople in London, et cetera, Chinese
people in London. So that iswhat I think of it as the good
thing about the food in London.It's like a center of excellence for all
these different cultures. And so youcan you can travel across the Empire food
(13:37):
wise and enjoy great food. Butif you just stick to like if you're
looking for like white British food,you're probably going to be disappointed because their
food is like notoriously bland. Youknow, one thing they do good is
(13:58):
like scones, like cakes. Youknow, I love my cakes, my
scones. Yeah, little little pies, little nice little desserts. But in
general, no, you have tonot think of food in London that way.
You have to look for the bestCaribbean restaurant. You have to look
(14:20):
for the best Indian restaurant, thebest Nigerian restaurant, the best Turkish restaurant,
the best Greek restaurant. And that'sthe way you're gonna eat very well
in London. Now, I playwith my Greek food, but I like
my Greek food in Greeks, Sodon't because I'm heading to London in a
couple of weeks. So it's goodGreek food in London, I'm gonna go
(14:43):
find it. Yeah, yeah,you're fine, really great, good,
great Greek food in London. AndNigerian what do Nigerian people? They love
stew. It's like this wonderful tomatostew. It's hot and spicy and you
can have anything in it, likeyou can have chicken, in it.
That's very popular. You can havebeef that's also popular. You can have
(15:05):
fish, but it's the same spicytomato stew and then you have that with
rice. You can also have agoosy which is another type of stew,
and that's made with melon seeds andusually you have it's very like nice salty.
(15:33):
You'd have that with like a crayfishflavoring, and then you usually have
it with some type of seafood.But again you can put anything into that
agosy stew and then your your starchwill be like ever, it's a type
of pounded yam or pounded cassava.So you you'd have that as your side.
(15:58):
What the Ganan's called fu food whichis like a more popular name for
it. So that's called swallow andso you'd have your stew and you'd have
your swallow on the side. Theyalso do an amazing oh cross stew O
cross soup. Oh it's delicious.Now, I Nigerians do okraw better than
(16:21):
anyone else because I love their Okasoup. It's one of my favorite dishes.
So I liked it. Okay.So I live in d C.
Yeah, I don't live ind Ilive outside of d C. But I
go to d C to have lovelydifferent foods from like different places in Africa.
I have had the Nigerians with nDC. I don't know what it's
(16:44):
like. I barely enjoyed it aslong as I pluck the ok route.
Okay, well, I could seethat. I could see that, and
I I I get it. Imean it's os I get I get it.
And I'm assuming you've had jeelo rice? Then, which is the other
(17:06):
star of West African food is jelof rice? And being able to have
like you know, you've qualified tolike boss level jeelo rice. When you
can now argue with West Africans aboutwho has the best jeel of rice.
So if you have, if it'sGana's joel of rice, if it's Senegal's
(17:27):
jel of rice, if it's Nigerian'sjel of right, my personal favorite is
Ghana's jeel of rice. They allhave subtle differences. I've only had sin
of goal. Okay, well,I think Senegal's jeelo of rice is supposed
to be like right up there,Okay, So I don't have to go
(17:49):
try the other jewel rice. Ihave to go hunted down. I just
wanted Okay. So one of myfriends told me that because I love Ethiopian
food, and they're like, well, you have to have this Nigerian oprah
soup. They did not tell methe name of it. They said it
was opra soup and I was like, ill, okra, but what the
heck, let's go, I'll tryit. And I was like, well,
(18:11):
this is good minus the opra,So like that's the only reason.
Again, somewhere else. Try itagain, somewhere else, because I know
what you mean. And I thinkit could be down to the way they
cook the okra or the way theycut the okra, because I think some
(18:32):
people don't have like big pieces ofokra in the soup, so that could
be another type. You might gookra huh they had larger pieces of okra.
Yeah, so I think that wouldn'tbe so nice to have larger pieces
of okra. Maybe that's what itwas. Yeah, I shouldn't have gone
to a place that it was afirst food restaurant. That might have been
(18:57):
it. Okay, I'm sorry,Oh, I just love talking about food.
I'm sorry. Best food in NewYork, Oh, best food in
New York. I love. Ilove the Caribbean food in New York.
It's it's so good, and Imissed that while I was in Nigeria a
lot because the pretty much the onlyCaribbean food I had was the food I
(19:21):
cooked. So it's nice to bein a place where I can go out
and enjoy lovely, you know,Caribbean food. So I think that's one
of my favorites here. What elsedo I like here? I like them,
hm, Solt food obviously, Ilove soalt food. So I've been
(19:48):
enjoying Solt food being here, andevery now and then I will have a
craving for like candy jams, becauseI never it's such a uniquely American can
experience candy yams. So I loveour candy at this point house. It's
(20:11):
a sugar craving as well. I'vekind of like I've had prepared in other
ways where in other countries where itwas just like, uh, just yams
kind of mashed up and you mightadd a little creaminess to it, and
that was just it and it wasdelicious, and I was like, you
don't have to put sugar on.I didn't recognize candy yams. It's literally
(20:36):
candy out of candy. Yeah,yeah, amazing it's it is. It's
amazing though It's true, it's soindulgent and I love it. Also,
the mac and cheese, Like,the best mac and cheese is definitely here
in America. I've never had andlike I love, lot of Americans don't
(21:02):
do it great. The bar canbe kind of low for mac and cheese,
but the best mac and cheese hasdefinitely been hit in America. Like,
there're people here who really know howto do mac and cheese. So
you're making me want mac and cheesenow, I am thinking. I'm sitting
(21:23):
here thinking about ordering it and havinga door dash to my house because fortunately
I don't live too far from Ilive far, but the drivers don't mind
the tip when they drive here.I'm gonna definitely make me an order of
real soul food. I haven't donethat in a minute. By the way,
my favorite New York food is bagels. Oh yes, nothing like a
(21:47):
New York bagel. And yeah,I haven't been elsewhere in America and like
had bagels to compare, but definitelyyou want a bagel. New York is
the place it is. It isdefinitely these please, I'm gonna say something
in most New Yorkers don't going like, but if you have pizza in New
York, you still have pizza inChicago. Yeah, I'm with you.
I think I like the fact thatNew York pizza has a slightly different taste
(22:12):
to it. But it's not it'snot my it's it's not my hill to
die on pizza. I've had betterpizza elsewhere. I'm still not sure about.
Yeah, like New York, Imean, pizza pizza is like mac
(22:33):
and cheese, like so many peoplemake pizza that for some people, like
the bar's kind of gotten low forpizza, but there are you can get
amazing pizza in New York. ButI don't really feel like I really have
had that amazing pizza yet. I'mstill I'm still exploring the pizza pizza landscape.
(23:00):
It's just great. I love that. That's what I'm gonna call it.
From now on. People gonna belike, well, you're such a
They do call me a pizza snob, But I don't feel like I'm a
pizza snob because I'm not like eatingamazingly like high up there pizza. I
just I'm very particular about the pizza. But I'm gonna be like, no,
I'm traversing the pizza landscape exactly cantake a lifetime. It can take
(23:23):
so long. So let's just nota pizza snob on a pizza journey.
Okay, Okay, there's been somuch time talking about food, which I
have thoroughly and fully enjoyed, Andnow I am hungry because I skipped breakfast.
Oh, should never do That's themost important meal of the day.
Well, I mean, I guessif you count the four am pizza coconut
(23:45):
cake. Wow, we should countpizza coconut cake. But I was hungry
and it was four in the morning. Sure wasn't gonna cook. Anyway,
Let's get it to you in yourbook. Okay. First of all,
you've had two amazing things happen.One, you apparently get a literary Asian
(24:07):
and get a published amazing and thentwo, well we'll wait for two.
Let's talk about how did you meetyour literary agent. Well, I was
in New York with no contacts,barely any friends, and I really wrote
a lot of my novel through thatpandemic loneliness. So when it was twenty
(24:30):
twenty, I finished my novel intwenty twenty or was it twenty I think
I finished in twenty twenty one,just what I told it a year.
No, I spent six years workingon the novel. I think, I
really you know, pushed gear changedgears during the pandemic. And so,
(24:51):
for example, I woke up atfive am for a year during the pandemic
on purpose. Yeah, because becausemy I have two kids, and my
kids were at home with me formuch of the pandemic, and as soon
as they were awake I could,I would find it very difficult to concentrate
on my writing. So I hadto wake up before they woke up and
(25:12):
write for a few hours. Butthat kind of changed my whole writing ethic
and discipline. So I made realprogress during that that time. So I
finished at the end of twenty twentyone, and just like Christmas time,
I finished, and so I said, okay, January, I'm going to
(25:37):
start agenting in earnest. I'm goingto write my query letters and I'm going
to have my spreadsheet of like,you know, two hundred agents who I'm
gonna query, because that is thenatural path of querying. You make a
spreadsheet, you have like two hundredagents on it, and you send out
(26:00):
your letters to each one, likepersonalized letters, and you wait six weeks
and hope they request your full manuscriptin that time, and you hope someone
bites. And often this can takelike a year to do to get through.
But what happened is I think twoweeks into January, I was on
(26:23):
Twitter and I saw there was anagent on Twitter who was asking for a
book that was kind of like mybook in a way. It was set
in Legos, Nigeria, and itwas like a bit of a who Done
It And it was called My Sisterthe Serial Killer, which was like a
(26:45):
hugely popular book. And so thisagent was on Twitter saying, hey,
guys, my inbox is open andI'd really like books like these, and
she mentioned My Sister the Serial Killer. So I was like, yes,
that's that is me. So Iqueried her immediately because obviously my letters were
(27:10):
ready to go, my manuscript wasready to go. So I queried her
immediately, and she wrote back tome, funnily enough, the same day
and said, hey, I wouldlike to see your manuscript. So my
manuscript was ready to go. SoI sent my manuscript to her straight away
the same day, and the nextday she made me an offer to represent
(27:30):
me and that is really like unusual. It's it's kind of magical, and
I took it for a magical momentand I took it for a sign that
this was my agent. She alsowas from, you know, a top
ten agency in the US, andso I really was like, this is
(27:56):
amazing and I and she is amazing. She you know, she changed my
life. So I ended up goingwith her and then we worked on the
novel a little bit and she soldit pretty much within a month. So
I'd gone from like six weeks youhave to wait just to get a manuscript
(28:18):
request from an agent to pretty muchselling my novel in six weeks to Simon
and Schuster. So it really wasincredible and incredible, incredibly fast and magical
journey. How what was the bookor wait, you did it during the
(28:41):
COVID year, so the book toursprobably wasn't wasn't as big as it could
be. So did you go onany book tours or did you do a
blog tour? I didn't go onany book tours. You know, I
was pretty much you know, publishinghas changed a lot, and although or
do book tours, I think publishersare not too hot on book talks.
(29:04):
So the publisher was kind of like, we don't care about book tours.
You should. You should write yoursecond book, right, don't even worry
about a book talk, just writeyour second book. And I don't know
if that was really good advice becauseI'm doing things a little bit more differently
(29:30):
now my book is coming out inthe UK. I'm going to visit booksellers.
I'm going around the country and I'mdoing like little events. And I
think the journey is not just aboutit's not just about like what's good for
the publisher or like you know,it's not even just about selling books.
(29:51):
It's also about enjoying your life.It's having the conversations you want to have
about your book, and it's seeingbook out there in a way that works
for who you are. And Ireally like meeting booksellers. I really like
talking to people about my book.And and I think if you don't do
(30:12):
any book tours, you're missing outas as a writer having that experience of
engaging with the readers, because readingreviews is not fun. There is something
to be said about engaging with thereaders, engaging with the public in general.
(30:33):
Like we were on tour for twentysix weeks out of the year for
about three years. Wow, itmight have been four. Oh. We
stopped touring during the COVID years andwe haven't got back to that schedule since.
Let me just say, the travelcars is a loutlet. Well yeah,
but it is an absolute blast andthen you get to meet new people
(30:56):
and introduced, you get them trustedin your book, and then you have
a whole new set of fans andit's just amazing. Yeah, it's a
wonderful experience. And so I'm tryingto do more of that now. And
I didn't do didn't really get intothat. They do a lot of stuff
(31:18):
online, which I think, againis not much fun for a writer because
it means you have to be onlineto engage with it, and that is
very time consuming and distracting and notas satisfying as actually meeting real people.
(31:40):
So I mean, this is adifferent sort of online engagement. But like,
just like engaging through blogs and likemessaging is not as satisfying as like
having a real conversation and seeing peoplein whether it's like this or in real
life. You know, I thinkthat makes a big difference. So I'm
(32:02):
all for touring, you know,I think it's a good thing for the
for the writer, and let's let'snot forget it also feeds your creativity.
It does, it really really does, and I can't explain it, but
(32:22):
I think in the ways you mentioned, and also I think helps you to
sort of understand what's what you bringto the table in terms of your work.
You know what people because you canyou can think about what's good about
(32:44):
your work, but sometimes it's notthe thing that you think it is.
So being out there with readers reallyis interesting and and prompting those creative questions
that you then bring to the pageexactly. And then I'm gonna say from
(33:06):
because I am the narcissist, soI'm going to talk on this from my
perspective. One of the things that'sreally great about the creativity is meeting different
people, different personalities, and beingin different cities. Still narcissist moment.
One of our biggest one of ourbiggest areas for fans is the Midwest.
So we're in places like Nebraska,Wyoming, the Dakota's. Yeah, no
(33:27):
one's really out there, but meetingnew people and seeing new places and being
to like write about those places becausenow you know those places you know what
restaurant, you're like, you knowwhat the street names are, you've driven.
It opens up a whole new worldto write about. It does.
And online girlies, I'm going totalk about girlies, but the online girlies
(33:51):
and in real life girlies are verydifferent. The online giralies tend to be
kind of more sort of millennial orgen z ish, and and they do
tend to connect with books a differentway because they're building platforms and they want
the cool book that everybody's talking about. And a lot of the people who
(34:16):
you meet in real life you wouldnever see online and you and honestly,
I think they they are not Theydon't have to impress anything. There's no
sort of clout involved with the bookthat they read. They're never going to
post a review on Goodreads. Butthey really love your book in the quocket
(34:43):
spaces of their life in a waythat can be very moving. And so
to interact with that I think isvery important, very very important. And
as to mention, that's where youfind out how it has changed someone's life.
YEA, who they wish they couldhave or what they want to know
(35:06):
in the next book, And thatreally does help increase your online presence because
you are giving your core person whowanted to get up, leave the house,
drive to where you are sit there, wait in line to talk to
you. Yeah, yeah, totell you what they thought. Yeah,
you're giving that person what they want. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's huge.
(35:34):
It is all right, I'm sorrylast question, SIMI to the last
question, which is which everyone wantsto know, how did your book get
options and tackle talent? So againthat was partly due to my agent,
And I would say that in thisday and age where IP is becoming so
(35:55):
lucrative, advance are falling, advancesare falling, and book sales are kind
of because book sales are kind offalling, right, so, but IP
sales are going up. And that'spartly because with streaming, these television companies
(36:19):
they need content, right, They'realways looking for content. And the days
when they used to like have awriting room of ten, like Brainstorm a
television show down to the bone soit can run for ten seasons, those
days are gone, right. Theydon't have they don't want to invest in
(36:40):
that. They just want something theycan put out there. So they look
for the books because we the writershave put that energy that interrogation of character
into our stories already, so allthey have to do is adapt the story
and they don't need ten writers todo that. They need one or maybe
(37:01):
three maximum writers to do that,and that costs less than a ten person
writing room. So if you wantto get optioned, the best way is
to get an agent who has connectionsin TV and film or in LA or
(37:22):
works with TV and film agents.And these are questions you need to ask
your agent upfront if that's what youwant, because if you don't have those
connections yourself and your agent doesn't havethose connections, then it's going to be
it's going to be much trickier forthose those things to happen. They might
(37:44):
happen. For example, if yourbook sells really well, like it's a
best seller, then maybe the TVcompanies will come to find you. But
my book sold before I even hada book deal, or my book was
on the way, it was outthere circulating in Hollywood before I had a
book deal, So it didn't selloff sales, and it didn't sell off
(38:07):
the hype of having a book dealthat was much anticipated. It's sold because
my agent knew people in TV andfilm who were looking for IP and sent
it to those people, and thatwas like a long a kind of a
longish process of like about a monthof the book circulating, and then now
(38:29):
people started coming to the table tobid for it. So that's all the
agent. That's what you now haveto start looking at as writers is asking
yourself, does my agent have thecapacity to deliver ip right? If your
agent does say that they have thepersonal connections, that's great. If they
(38:51):
don't and they give them some subagents, you need to know the connections that
the subagent has. You want tomake sure that the subagent is not brand
new, Yeah, for sure.And you still need luck, but these
are the ways you can kind ofcontrol your luck. Yeah, definitely.
Of course. You know there's theway that I try to do it,
which is just go meet the production. I mean, whatever works, And
(39:15):
you have that personality. A lotof writers don't. So it's also like
what can knowing yourself and what youneed for these things to happen, you
know what I mean? Exactly?Writers know people in TV and media and
(39:36):
also if you've been in a community, if you're very embedded in your community,
you will know people across the spectrumin your community. So there's different
ways to get things done exactly.It has been an absolute pleasure talking to
you. What is next for you? What is coming up for you that
we need to go to. Obviouslyit's a UK booktor May I mention a
(40:00):
UK book tour is so fun.Yeah plains, I mean, but you
know this. Never mind you livedin London, Yeah, never mind.
I want to know about your UKtours, multiple tours. I've been doing
a UK tour since my book cameout in October, and I ended up
on a UK tour by December ofthe next December of that year. Amazing.
(40:22):
So you call those little bookshops,those cute little bookshops do PR tours,
Okay, so it's a radio televisionokay, magazine interviews, I do
PR tours, Okay. I wantto do bookshops and stuff like I got
the libraries and and a couple ofplaces that was fun. But yeah,
(40:47):
I'm going to do this one day. I'm going to be like, I
am doing a book tour, likea real book tour, not a PR
tour because I like being on camera. Okay, what do what makes you
happy? I think that's the seeof the tour is you can do the
things that you like to do,right, that's what's great about it.
I think the closest we get toa real book to wealth. There's one
(41:09):
in northern England and then there's onein Greece. So like we just like
we knew the owner of the hotel, and the hotel owner likes our books,
and we come up with a newbook. We come up to new
two notebooks every year for a while. And so when we went to the
hotel, they would get together peoplewho liked book into we're English speaking,
and we read to them and theytold us about like it was like a
(41:30):
huge book club pretty much. I'mjust being and I mean it was a
great reason to go to Greece Greekisle. We got to go to a
Greek isle to read our book.Yeah, that's a win win, Like
okay, if you if you areput twist my arm, No, twist
my arm, I'm going, I'mgoing. I'll be there. I love
(41:53):
it. I really love the soundof that. And I want to think
of that now for my next booktour. How can I get to Greece
or somewhere equally picturesque and have thatas part of my of my tour,
Like that's amazing. It was sofun. I was like, I'm so
glad you're like us, but you'regoing to do it. You have an
(42:15):
agent, don't worry about it anyway. What's next for you? What's next?
Just writing? I mean, I'mkind of scrambling to get time to
write right now. I have todeliver my second novel by June, so
I'm writing like a thousand words aday right now to kind of just make
(42:38):
that deadline. And you know,obviously I do my rewrites as well,
so that's kind of it. I'mpromoting the novel, but I'm also like
writing and there's not really time foranything else. So that's where I'm at.
That is amazing. I want tothank you so much for being here.
(42:59):
And I really should have asked aboutyour writing schedule. I really should
have, but my tummy is reallygrumbling. Now that we have talked about
mac and cheese and candy yams.Now we both meet to eight, I
think, so I'm gonna go aheadand wrap it up on our end.
I will Nona on one of theNDI I thought ladies. You can find
out everything about your ladies at wwwdot anti. I thought ladies dot com
(43:21):
and when you go down to themiddle of the page, not the bottom
of the page, but the middleof the page, you can see the
charities that we probably support. Iwant to remind everyone that our annual awards
gala that's also our charity donation gala, is coming up in May, so
could you buy a ticket so wecan do a better donation this year.
I mean, we had a nicedonation last year, but come on,
(43:42):
let's stop it. Like twice asmuch would be great, all right,
So we asked that you support thesecharities in any way that you would that
you can. It does not meanfinancially, which although I just asked you
to financially pitch in right, doesnot mean financially. You can give them
like some knowledge if you want toor whatever, but we think you in
advance for that. And remember thatwisdom it's all around you if you're a
bit defining it and accepting it.So peace in love you guys from Molona
(44:07):
and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
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